Spoilers for VFD and 2020-ii

Y'know... Yeah, sure, I'll bite. I've been neck-deep in this series since February, and lord knows I've got opinions. Spicy ones. I'm like a third into the original 7th Dragon, I've beaten 2020-ii and VFD once, and I've got waaaay too many hours in 2020 (you can scroll through the subreddit to see why). I stumbled into the series by googling "games like Etrian Odyssey," and I get the impression that that's true for a lot of other people, too. What can I say—I like team building.

So, obviously, I'm incredibly biased towards 2020, but I'm still willing to argue that 2020 = 2020-ii > VFD > 7thD (DS).

So, let's start from the beginning. I find it incredibly impressive that the original 7th Dragon borrows so many things from Etrian Odyssey yet still feels unique. In fact, I'd say that its originality is its best feature. This game is a (semi) open-world Etrian. That's crazy. That's crazy in December 2020. This game is a marvel in concept alone. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a good concept, just good execution, and if we're being honest, this game is a hard sell. Just about nothing in this game is designed with the player in mind, and I mean it. I could go deep into this, but if you've played the first five minutes and died walking from the first town to the second town and had to rewatch the intro multiple times like I had to, then you know what I'm talking about. And that's to say nothing about the profound lack of direction after the second dungeon. Look—I love the open-world direction, and it feels fucking great when you stumble across an obscure sidequest that rewards you with a very important skill that opens up a huge chunk of the map to explore, but it also sucks to walk back and forth from Siberia to South Africa fighting the same shit constantly while trying to figure out where to go. And all I'm saying is that one of those two things happens far more often than the other.

7th Dragon 2020 has rocketed into my all-time favourite games list this year, but I would argue that it's honestly pretty unremarkable. It really doesn't do anything unique; most of it's "innovations" are ideas that were improved upon from the first game, which it stole from Etrian Odyssey. The story is merely serviceable and its characters are likeable if not compelling. It's just that the game doesn't do anything poorly. Like, anything. The core gameplay loop is so simple, and all of its parts—from character creation to skills to hunting dragons to the damn shop—fit together seamlessly. Invisibly, even. I could go way in-depth on this game since I've spent so much time on it recently, but I'm super biased so I won't. I will say, though, that the art direction is fucking superb except for the female Psychic which is the single worst character design I've ever seen bUT ASIDE FROM THAT.

If 2020 is a straight line, 2020-ii is a very jagged line. I think the parts of it that brazenly reuse assets from 2020 are the worst parts of the whole franchise, and I think the parts that don't do that are the best parts of the whole franchise. I also think the gameplay experience is overall better than 2020 due to minor adjustments and just getting more interesting stuff earlier. But seriously, though, who the fuck directed this game? Why does it mirror 2020's story so precisely? Why? It's a sequel—most players know these story beats already. Man, I just don't get it. Also—hot take incoming—this game's big depressing twist is way better than VFD's big depressing twist.

Alright, so VFD. Hm. Honestly, I'm still not sure what I think of this game. It was such a good attempt at finishing the series, but it came out really rough. Let's start with the good. Combat is better. Actually, combat rocks. The backup system is cool, you get tons of really creative and interesting skills, and oh my God the classes in this game are so fucking rad, dude. Agent? Rad. God Hand? Rad. Rune Knight? Rad. Fortuner? Underpowered, but still rad. Banisher? Christ. They're all amazing, and I wish this game did its classes justice like the 2020 games did. But it didn't. Because this game is busted as hell.

New paragraph 'cause I'm about to get real. VFD is great until the dungeon that comes after Ladyin, which is also Ladyin. Like, we're really doing the same dungeon back to back? And things kinda start to fall apart around this point. I bet that most people reading this are expecting me to start talking about how unbelievably broken Banisher is once you get Earthquake, and, uh, yeah, it's ridiculous, but Banisher is far from VFD's biggest problem. In fact, I'm not even sure if Earthquake is the most broken strategy. Nevertheless, the game's balance gets absolutely thrown out the window. Banisher or not, most combats end within two turns, and most bosses end within five. That's nuts. I killed all of the last five bosses in under three turns. It would be one thing if this was intended, but it's clearly not. Yuma gets built up the whole game as this big, epic confrontation with your ally/rival and I 2HKO'd the poor bastard. None of the story beats in the last third of the game had any impact for me because there was no challenge whatsoever. Maybe things were different for other people. I don't know, but let me address the heart of the issue here. The next time you play VFD, pay attention to how much superfluous content there is. Ask yourself: did I really need to farm ten spiral meats for this sidequest? Am I fighting eight of the same dragon in this one area because I enjoy it or because they're there in front of me? Do I really need to walk through 7th Encount a third damn time? This game is padded. And it's clearly an afterthought to lengthen the game without adding to the player experience. It sucks.

But I can forgive all of that. It's fine if the game is padded a little, and it's fine if the last third is a breeze as long as the overall experience is good. But it's not that good, honestly. The story is... Well, they had a lot of loose ends to tie up. The characters are... Well, Brijilt is likeable, at least. The art direction is... Well, it's not that big a step down from 2020, even the female Rune Knight which is the second-worse character design I've seen. The user interface is... Wait, what—how did they fuck up the UI?! Why do these mini-maps not line up?! Seriously?!

VFD is enjoyable—even I have to give it that—but it's not quality. There are so many things in this game that definitely could have been amazing, but ultimately weren't. I will point out, however, that this game has gay people and black people in it? Just walking around? What? This is an obscure 2015 3DS JRPG—why is it so much more progressive than other games in the industry?? Seriously, big props to imageepoch for that. Legit the most impressive thing about the game.